Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/Newsroom

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The Signpost currently has 5624 articles, 704 issues, and 13710 pages (4476 talk and 9234 non-talk).

Current issue: Volume 20, Issue 17 (2024-12-12) ·

issue page · archive page · single-page edition · single-page talk (create)

Articles and pageviews for 2024-12-12

Pageviews for 2024-12-12 (V) Subpage Title 7-day 15-day 30-day 60-day 90-day 120-day 180-day Traffic report Something Wicked for almost everybody 299 299 299 299 299 299 299 Opinion Worm That Turned's reconfirmation RfA debriefing 580 580 580 580 580 580 580 Op-ed On the backrooms 923 923 923 923 923 923 923 News and notes Arbitrator election concludes 588 588 588 588 588 588 588 In the media Right-wing politician opines: "Like the BBC, often useful but not impartial" 580 580 580 580 580 580 580 In focus Are Wikipedia articles representative of Western or world knowledge? 554 554 554 554 554 554 554 Disinformation report Sex, power, and money revisited 683 683 683 683 683 683 683 Arbitration report Palestine-Israel articles 5 645 645 645 645 645 645 645

Previous issue: 2024-11-18 · issue page · archive page · single-page edition · single-page talk

Articles and pageviews for 2024-11-18

Pageviews for 2024-11-18 (V) Subpage Title 7-day 15-day 30-day 60-day 90-day 120-day 180-day Traffic report Well, let us share with you our knowledge, about the electoral college 528 770 1033 1033 1033 1033 1033 Recent research SPINACH: AI help for asking Wikidata "challenging real-world questions" 445 636 798 798 798 798 798 News from the WMF Wikimedia Foundation and Wikimedia Endowment audit reports: FY 2023–2024 404 557 702 702 702 702 702 News and notes Open letter to WMF about court case breaks one thousand signatures, big arb case declined, U4C begins accepting cases 1175 1760 2494 2494 2494 2494 2494 In the media Summons issued for Wikipedia editors by Indian court, "Gaza genocide" RfC close in news, old admin Gwern now big AI guy, and a "spectrum of reluctance" over Australian place names 975 1362 1826 1826 1826 1826 1826

Getting comment about Wikimedia in India

Summary

The Wikimedia Foundation is not going to talk about anything related to Wikimedia in India at this time, even if it is unrelated to this court case. Many people in Wikimedia community of volunteers in India are - in my view - afraid to talk about either routine Wikimedia organizing in India or comment on the ANI court case.

What to do with this information

The Wikimedia community repeatedly directs The Signpost editors to get support and comment from the Wikimedia Foundation. The information here is the complete answer to that community request. I consider WMF communication on India-related issues closed now. If any community volunteer wishes to insist that the WMF say more, then such people can contact the WMF themselves while linking to this update, and try to convince the WMF of whatever they like.

There is interest in getting journalism from community members. Here is some documentation about the challenges in doing that.

All this information establishes journalistic diligence in trying to reach out, and justifies The Signpost continuing its r reporting in the absence of comment from some key stakeholders.

Wikimedia volunteer community

First, I wrote to the Wikimediaindia-l closed, subscription only mailing list with this message. I am copying here even though the email is archived, because the mailing list is closed. https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/thread/HJSMT5QSDR3VTPJJMJAT4QGFMB5VLH3M/

Lane's letter to the India mailing list

Hello Wikimedia editors in India, My name is Lane. I am an editor for The Signpost, which is English Wikipedia's community newspaper for Wikimedia news. In the last issue I organized some articles about the Asian News International Court case. You can read those at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/Single/2024-11-06 In particular, check out https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2024-11-06/In_focus I am writing now to ask for submissions for additional journalism. I request two kinds of articles: one, if anyone would like to write journalism with community reactions to the court case, then that is welcome. Separate from that, this court case brings attention to the Wikipedia community in India generally, and if anyone would like to talk about this while the world is looking and interested, then now is a good time. The Signpost is a community volunteer publication so it helps us if you can organize your own submission, and then bring a draft for us to review. Submit drafts at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/Newsroom/Submissions . If you have general questions for the editors then ask at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Wikipedia_Signpost/Newsroom If anyone wants to submit or publish something privately or confidentially, then you can email me or have a friend forward your message to me somehow. I say this because Wikipedia editors are getting sued right now, and I can understand that some people with views to share may not want their Wikipedia name or offline identity out there. Your perspective is still valuable though. From a global Wikipedia community perspective, here are interesting questions to answer: Who are the community groups and individuals in India who edit Wikipedia? What are some of the major accomplishments of Wikipedia editors in India? What are the biggest challenges for volunteers in India? What support would editors in India like from either other volunteers or the Wikimedia Movement? For people interested in the court case, here are some questions which may be interesting: How is the Asian News International court case affecting volunteers in India? What questions would you like The Signpost to publish, in hopes that anyone - such as other editors, external legal commentators, or anyone else - could discuss or answer? How would you tell the story of this court case? In The Signpost, I tried to tell the story as a person in the United States, but is there someone in India who wants to tell the story? Thanks! Publishing happens every two weeks, so there is not a real deadline, as we will always be publishing an issue soon. However, this is a hot story right now, so if you want maximum interest to your perspective, publishing end of November or mid December is ideal. Next publication may happen in 2-3 days which is too soon for a long story, probably. best wishes

I have some responses to this. No one volunteered to talk publicly by their name. All respondents were private and cautious.

Wikimedia Foundation

I wrote to Wikimedia Answers <answers@wikimedia.org>. This is a Wikimedia Foundation communication channel for general inquiries. They said that they would not reply to the following email because of active legal issues.

I think there are no reports to share about Wikimedia's activities in India. Like, of all the projects there over years and of all the money invested, there are no public facing reports. What I was hoping for was something like for every US$1 million spent or for every year that passed, then someone would take an hour to write a one-page outcome summary. Nothing of that sort exists of which I am aware, and I should be aware with the effort I have made to find it.

Lane's letter to staff

Hello Rachit, My name is Lane and I am an editor for The Signpost. I presume that you saw my articles about Asian News International. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/Single/2024-11-06 Let's leave Asian News International versus Wikimedia Foundation completely aside. I have no questions about that. However, in the context of the attention on the Wikimedia community in India, I am writing to ask you for comment for The Signpost. Here are some questions: Can you recommend the most recent published overview of the state of Wikimedia community projects in India? If I describe the activity in this region, then what should I read to find things to report? What is the most recent published WMF strategy for program or community development in India? I am aware that things may be revised, but what was the last plan for the future? Can you recommend any Wikimedia community representative in India who would be generally available to me to talk about wiki community in India? Again, I do not need to talk about the court case. Are you interested in being interviewed for Signpost? We do not have capacity for very in-depth journalism, but if you would meet, then I would like to talk with you. If you like we can negotiate some questions in advance, or you can suggest some topics of interest and I can direct your focus by email in advance. If you would meet, then here is my contact - https://calendly.com/bluerasberry thanks for your attention

Bluerasberry (talk) 18:13, 19 November 2024 (UTC)

Let me see if I'm getting this last part right. The WMF official responsible for foundation-community communications for the region, who has "Communications Specialist" in their title, won't say a word about their activities in any respect, including simple questions like what's a good overview of your work that I can review, because of the ANI-vs-WMF case? ☆ Bri (talk) 18:41, 19 November 2024 (UTC)

@Bri: Yes, that is the stated reason, and that is the key insight and interesting takeaway from the response.

I can only guess, but here are some more plausible reasons for not answering:

1. That WMF staff person is not a Wikimedia community member, so does not speak for the community. I am not sure what they do, but perhaps they organized a WMF/Google partnership, and perhaps they hired Instagram influencers in India to talk about the Wikimedia Foundation fundraising campaign. What they do may be more about talking with people outside of Wikipedia than anything about the wiki community itself.
2. The WMF truly does not have summary documentation or a communication strategy on its investments in India. If such information existed, then it would already be published, and either I or the Indian community would know about it. Also, I know the state of United States WMF programs, and they are not reported for my home region, so I am not surprised that they are not documented for India either.
3. The Wikimedia community in India is very anxious about Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act, 2010 and has the belief that the WMF is non-compliant with this regulation. The popular interpretation of this law that I hear from volunteers is that people in India are not supposed to accept nonprofit funding except through an FCRA-compliant organization registered in India, and that organization should be a Wikimedia India organization but that does not exist. I set up meta:WikiProject Bribery to document some stories I have heard that people who receive money from the WMF get government official visits asking for bribes due to not being appropriately registered. I have no idea what to think of this except that whatever the situation, FCRA makes people anxious.
4. Volunteers in India who do outreach or community organization wish to be invisible at this time, regardless of what they are doing. If WMF produced a report of basic community activities, then due to political and media attention right now, typical random volunteers whose projects were the subject of discussion could get hyper attention. For example, if a volunteer hosted a casual meetup one time for 20 people, then due to media frenzy, it is possible that media sources treat that as an official Wikimedia Foundation program in India, dox the organizers, and generally misunderstand what it means for wiki volunteers to meet, i.e., for a photo walk or library book scanning event.

Bluerasberry (talk) 21:36, 19 November 2024 (UTC)

New article to be copyedited

I've a first version of my new contribution to the Signpost : User:PAC2/Signpost Opinion1. Your feedback is welcome. PAC2 (talk) 22:09, 19 November 2024 (UTC)

Thank you for the submission, PAC2. Is this ready for publication? If so, it can be moved to 'Next issue/In focus'. Svampesky (talk) 16:01, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

Not yet. I would be happy to have someone copy editing the article before publication. PAC2 (talk) 20:55, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

I'll go ahead and copyedit it. Are you planning to add anything else, or is it ready for publication after the copyediting? Svampesky (talk) 18:29, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for your answer. Unless you ask for more details, it's ready for publication. PAC2 (talk) 21:13, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

20:17 Opinion

Hi all. I was asked to write an opinion by Svampesky and have just realised that since I've never written for Signpost before, I have no idea of the etiquette, formatting or process. I've dropped it in Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Next issue/Opinion - but please feel free to delete / format / reword or whatever wizardry you do as editors. If there's anything you need me to do, let me know. Worm^TT(talk) 14:50, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

Thank you for the submission. There aren't too many rules for opinion pieces, but I'll sort out the formatting. Svampesky (talk) 16:07, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

20:17 Op-ed

Searching through Signpost archives, the page name should be in sentence case as 'Op-ed' and not 'Op-Ed', so this should be noted before publishing. Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Next issue/Op-ed is ready for copyediting and the transcript can be found here.
Thank you for allowing us to republish the essay, @Tamzin. Would you like to select a cover image for the column? Svampesky (talk) 16:45, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

Since it happens to be freely licensed, I don't see how I could not pick File:HobbyTown USA Oshkosh interior under construction 2002 (The Backrooms).jpg. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (they|xe) 16:56, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

I redirected Next issue/Op-Ed to the submitted Op-ed, which might have been a bludgeon. Update the article status table picked up Op-ed and listed them both, so I removed the redirect. ☆ Bri (talk) 18:00, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

20:17 Disinformation report

I've started the new Disinfo report at Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Next issue/Disinformation report. For some reason the template for it had disappeared, but I recreated it (sort of). It doesn't show up on the Newsroom page, but it does on the current issue page. But it doesn't have a 20:16 comment page. The report is now just 4 sections of revisited articles. There will be at least 2 more sections. Comments, and even preliminary copy editing are welcome. I do intend to write more disinfo reports, so I'd appreciate somebody recreating it in full Smallbones_(smalltalk) 00:59, 2 December 2024 (UTC)

I think it's ok now and appears on the Newsroom page. I may have one mor section at the end by tomorrow. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 00:41, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

Really interesting report, @Smallbones. I've slightly copyedited to have a more neutral tone without substantially changing the text. Svampesky (talk) 16:20, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for trying to tone it down a bit, but I think you actually did the opposite. For example, when somebody like Epstein or Maxwell has been convicted, you don't have to be so careful about saying "alleged" or "apparent" etc. And when a declared paid editor declares that they have been paid (as in the Vivek section) it's better to say "declared" rather than "claimed". "Claimed" might be interpreted as indicatating that you don't believe the declared paid editor. I do believe him - in part because of the timing a year before Vivek became a presidential candidate - and even stronger because Ramaswamy later admitted to having his team clean up the article. BTW, the standard Joe job warning is in there, covering everybody. I do this in every disinfo article. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 16:40, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

Here are the copyedits:

• Jeffery Epstein's paid edits -> Edits that claimed to be associated with Jeffrey Epstein
• Ghislaine Maxwell’s apparent edits -> Contributions that appear be come from Ghislaine Maxwell
• The Signpost article showed that three apparent undeclared paid editors, plus one very aggressive declared paid editor had edited the article about Greg Lindberg. -> The Signpost article reports on three editors which look like undeclared paid editors, plus one very aggressive editor had edited the article about Greg Lindberg.
• The Signpost reported that he apparently created the articles Matthew Whitaker about himself -> The Signpost reported that it appears that he created the articles Matthew Whitaker about himself
• User:Jhofferman, following Wikipedia's rules, declared that Vivek Ramaswamy paid him to edit the article about Ramaswamy -> User:Jhofferman, following Wikipedia's rules, claimed that Vivek Ramaswamy paid him to edit the article about Ramaswamy.

The subjects being convicted of crimes has no relevance on whether the Wikipedia edits were made by them or their associates, and since there is no definitive proof, responsible journalism would be careful not to make claims—or the appearance of claims—in Signpost-voice. I admit that I haven't reviewed Jhofferman's edits, but if they were consistent with typical paid editing, it would be safe say 'disclose'. But if editors are aggressively removing negative information, it could easily be an attempt to embarrass the subject, especially given that it was during a political campaign, so should opt for 'claimed', as publishing the claim that they paid someone to do this would err into defamation. Svampesky (talk) 16:57, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

After reviewing my copyedits, I've found a few grammar and wording errors that will need further editing, but the overall intention should be clear. Svampesky (talk) 17:27, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

I'm not going to restore the copyedits that were reverted since I don't want to enter into an edit war, but another one I just made removed 'Another criminal' in line with WP:BLPSTYLE and neutral tone.

Another criminal, Greg Lindberg, was convicted in May and is now awaiting sentencing. -> In May, Greg Lindberg was convicted bribery and conspiracy to commit wire fraud and is now awaiting sentencing. Svampesky (talk) 16:23, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

New CSD: T5

Noting that WP:CSD#T5 now exists. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 13:54, 3 December 2024 (UTC)

Unused template subpages SerialNumber54129 14:27, 3 December 2024 (UTC)

20:17 News and notes

Administrator elections debrief

Does anybody want to volunteer to do a review of Wikipedia:Administrator elections/October 2024/Debrief? The discussion seems to have wound down a bit. A writeup could take some time, or it could be more off-the-cuff. ☆ Bri (talk) 22:13, 3 December 2024 (UTC)

Issue 20:18

It might be a good time to discuss whether folks will be around to help put together an issue at the end of the month, which coincides with several holidays observed in English speaking countries. Also, if it is happening: should there be some specials considered for an end-of-year edition? Maybe JPxG will re-vamp the December 28, 2021 Deletion report, huh? And, say, Smallbones's Xmas Eve 2024 Gallery wasn't bad, either. ☆ Bri (talk) 01:21, 4 December 2024 (UTC)

Ok @Bri: you got me off my schedule and I had to listen to every one of those songs again. It was missing something, so we can publish this again (on the 23rd or 24th) if I can add Cool Yule, by Louis. The last issue of the year has always been my favorite. Let's do it. Now back to work. @JPxG: please remember that the disinfo report for this issue is quite important. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 17:25, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

I am about to set the timer to the 3rd Sunday of December per Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/Newsroom/Archive 35 and Smallbones' reply. ☆ Bri (talk) 23:29, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

20:17 In the media

This looks like a big story to me, but it's completely over my head. My solution - just write up what I know and ask @JPxG, HaeB, Bri, and Jayen466: what you guys think should be done with it. Maybe put it at the top of the column, declare it to be a revolution in something, whatever. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 00:31, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

• DataStax and WMDE announced a new product Wikimedia Deutschland Launches AI Knowledge Project in Collaboration with DataStax Built with NVIDIA AI DataStax

WMDE plans to make Wikidata’s data easily accessible for the Open Source AI/ML Community via an advanced vector search by expanding the functionality with fully multilingual models, such as Jina AI through DataStax’s API portal, to semantically search up to 100 of the languages represented on Wikidata. To vector embed a large, massively multilingual, multicultural, and dynamic dataset is a hard challenge, especially for low-resource, low-capacity open source developers. With DataStax’s collaboration, there is a chance that the world can soon access large subsets of Wikidata’s data for their AI/ML applications through an easier-to-access method. Although only available in English for now, DataStax’s solution provided a valuable initial experiment ~10x faster than our previous, on-premise GPU solution. This near-real-time speed will permit us to experiment at scale and speed by testing the integration of large subsets in a vector database aligned with the frequent updates of Wikidata
- Dr. Jonathan Fraine, Chief Technology Officer, Wikimedia Deutschland.

An earlier presentation gives further details.

Smallbones_(smalltalk) 00:31, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

There is some background info at Retrieval-augmented generation. It's a lot to try to explain. ☆ Bri (talk) 01:34, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

I already covered this very briefly in the current issue's Recent research (search for "Wikimedia Deutschland"). WMDE folks have been talking about this project for about a year already (including at some conferences and about three months ago in the "Wikimedia AI" Telegram channel, where they provided some valuable additional background in response to questions from community members).

It's an interesting topic that deserves fuller coverage at some point. I have been inclined to wait with that until they actually release a product. But if someone wants to do a longer writeup already, sure. Just keep in mind that these press releases are still only announcements of plans and partnerships; our coverage should be transparent about that.

Regards, HaeB (talk) 01:44, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for the feedback. I'll just change the word "product" to "project" at the top of the "In brief" section. Then I'll ask anybody who wants to change the write-up to go ahead, or let JPxG to just delete it. I'm completely agnostic on this: I don't know enough about the topic to know if the write-up is any good. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 02:28, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

FWIW, there is a lengthy Kurier discussion about this general topic: de:Wikipedia_Diskussion:Kurier#KI_und_Wikipedia Andreas JN466 20:01, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

I don't see it (also did a quick search for "Wikidata" in that section), could you point to the specific part you are referring to? (or if you meant "there is a discussion about AI", well, there have been tons of these over the last few years across the movement; an incomplete list of starting points: meta:Artificial Intelligence)

Regards, HaeB (talk) 01:59, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

Edit war with reader???

I think we now officially have an edit war at Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2024-12-12/In the media. ☆ Bri (talk) 22:38, 21 December 2024 (UTC)

Nice piece of canvassing, but before you do something so pointless as to put a quote without attribution again, please think through what you’re doing. You cannot have an opinionated quote as a headline without giving the basic context of who said it. If you don’t like the accurate description, the very minimum you need is to have the name of the person who you are quoting. This is really fucking basic stuff, without which you are misleading everyone who either looks at the article or even the headline in the emails/talk page messages that go out. - SchroCat (talk) 22:43, 21 December 2024 (UTC)

I would prefer Conservative politician opines: or Jacob Rees-Mogg:, but would err on the side of caution on labeling him Right-wing as his article doesn't label him as such in the top section. But in the political ideology section of his article, the labels are all attributed with a citation. Svampesky (talk) 23:35, 21 December 2024 (UTC)

Either of those would be workable and certainly an improvement to having zero attribution. I see a second comment on the page that the article is putting other things in Signpost's voice that it shouldn't: there needs to be more oversight on the basics here, because this isn't a good look. (In terms of his ideology, he is certainly right wing, as all members of the Conservative Party are: it sits on the centre-right to right of politics, as do all its MPs). This is not, as was described by one editor, a "corrosive" label at all, but basic and accurate stuff (c.f. the opening paragraph of our article on the Conservative Party article, which describes it as "centre-right to right-wing"). - SchroCat (talk) 08:29, 22 December 2024 (UTC)

Estimated time of publication?

@JPxG, Bri, HaeB, and Jayen466: While I haven't done much digging, it looks to me like there will be 6 articles this issue. In the media is essentially ready, I'll put the Disinfo report in basic copy editing posistion in about 20 minutes, but want to add a bit more if publication is being held back. I'd appreciate good copy editing there by you folks. So there is a big difference to me if you publish in three hours or 24 hours. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 19:47, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

Tonight is impossible, since I am about to sleep and then go to work; I will review what we've got at breaktime tomorrow and when I get home we should be able to roll. jp×g🗯️ 20:59, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

I'll be out of contact starting soon, through Sunday, probably will check in quickly on Monday, but won't be really able to contribute much more to this issue. ☆ Bri (talk) 00:05, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

I'm currently copyediting User:PAC2/Signpost Opinion1 for 'In focus'. Svampesky (talk) 18:33, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

Where we stand on this issue

It looks like we have 7-8 publishable articles ready to go except for piccies and final review by @JPxG:. I'm quite surprised, but I don't think we have enough news for News and notes. We can publish without it - it's happened before.

• News and notes - results from WP:ACE are in. I copied over the minimum results but can't do the rest. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 02:02, 9 December 2024 (UTC)
• In the media - IMHO pretty good. The WMDE tech thingee is not within my expertise, so since there's plenty of text already in Itm, I'd personally remove it.
• Disinfo report - just fine as is
• In focus - I have some questions on formatting (e.g. tables) and think it could be better with earlier editorial guidance, but that is water over the bridge now. I really do like it for its simplicity (in the best meaning of the word) and might suggest something of a series coming from this.
• Arb report - short but useful
• opinion and Op-ed - ok
• Traffic report - ready to go, but you might want to review my replacement of the text of #8 in the lower section, with text about the same article in the higher section.

I'll be with family and unavailable until 0:00 UTC. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 20:36, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

I was ready to finish copyediting but I apparently have to go move a bunch of goddamned boxes in an hour because the days off change randomly and nobody can be bothered to update the schedule more than a few hours in advance. I will see what I can do but I think I need to sleep. I am supposed to have two days off in a row after tonight, which is what's normally called a "weekend", except in my case it is completely unpredictable when it happens and how long it is. jp×g🗯️ 04:22, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

Holding strong at "not scheduled for tomorrow". jp×g🗯️ 08:22, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

Tomorrow I go in at, well, in twenty hours -- will have this issue out during the morning/afternoon then, so about 12-13 hours from now, which is 2024-12-11 20:00 UTC. jp×g🗯️ 08:06, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

I will not be available for writing today. But there's movement on the private Arb case and one editor has been banned. See noticeboard announcement. ☆ Bri (talk) 18:55, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

• I attempted to run the publishing script, but for some reason it repeatedly failed. I do not have time to diagnose the error; I am currently using the same version of SPS.js as has been used since April. Everything is ready to be published. @Bri and Smallbones: if you want to publish, please go ahead and do so, as I must leave in ten minutes. jp×g🗯️ 05:19, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

  Note, if debugging is necessary, that in my case it created the issue page, then did initial processing on about six of the articles and then randomly hung (twice in the same place). SPS.js doesn't have detailed enough console logging to go any more granular than that, at least not that I can tell. If nobody has figured this out by the time I get off work and get home, I will try to add some logging to the script and figure out why it is hanging -- my guess is that one of the articles has some formatting that's off in a weird way and is triggering an edge case bug. jp×g🗯️ 07:48, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

I can do the manual publishing today but not earlier than 2100 UTC. ☆ Bri (talk) 12:41, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

Thanks @JPxG and Bri:. I'd guess one possible cause for the publication hangup might be having both an "Op-ed" and an "Op-Ed" stories. On "Disinfo report", I was surprised to see Jeffrey Epstein's pic is going to be displayed on the contents page. He's only mentioned in passing in the article and I wouldn't like anybody to think "All those other people are like Epstein" - absolutely not!

I'll suggest File:Gautam Adani 01 cropped.jpg or really any other closeup of Adani. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 15:07, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

When the current 'In focus' report was in the userspace of the author, one of the Signpost footer templates transcluded Wikipedia:WikiProject Pokémon. I'm not sure why this happened, and it could be related. Svampesky (talk) 21:16, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

Pencils up please! I'll begin in about 30 minutes. ☆ Bri (talk) 20:31, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

@Bri: The issue seems to have been only half-published- the main page lists 5 blurbs but the Single page 8; the single page version wasn't actually created til I added the template, and all the articles still have the draft template at the top. --PresN 21:34, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

I think you looked at it part way through manual publishing. Manual publishing takes a while. I just finished and am about to announce it. ☆ Bri (talk) 21:42, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

@Bri: you probably know this already but the single page has the correct articles in it plus the draft headers; and the main page has all the stories from the November issue, not from the December issue. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 21:45, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

Please check again. I'll wait to announce via mail list until it looks good. ☆ Bri (talk) 21:46, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

@Bri: The main page looks good. The Single-page is off. It loads and will take you to the article you click, but it's a separate page for each article. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 21:52, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

I think I fixed it. There was already something there, probably from the aborted publishing script run. I overwrote it manually. The mass message was just sent out. ☆ Bri (talk) 21:56, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

Some stuff, like the single page talk page, needs Wegweiser to work properly, which is on my github but I am planning on setting it up to be Toolforge-triggerable (e.g. like {{database report}}). jp×g🗯️ 10:14, 13 December 2024 (UTC)

Ran, and comments page can be seen at Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/Single/2024-12-12. jp×g🗯️ 19:01, 13 December 2024 (UTC)

A couple of unfinished tasks remain: announcement via mail list, and mass message on meta. I think we use a Signpost account for the former, and someone with meta mass-message-sender permissions needs to do the latter. ☆ Bri (talk) 22:18, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

Thank you for getting this issue out! Please be aware that User:Bri/Signpost_publication#Manual_publishing_process is outdated and the currently maintained version of those instructions is here.

Case in point: The mailing list announcements are routinely done by Andreas now (see Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/About#The Signpost team), using his own email address because we seem to have lost the credentials to the wikipediasignpost Gmail account.

Regard, HaeB (talk) HaeB (talk) 22:53, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

Seconding the thanks, and I intend to fix some of the docu-woes for next time. jp×g🗯️ 10:54, 13 December 2024 (UTC)

20:18 Op-ed

Reserved for a guest writer. Svampesky (talk) 17:12, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

20:18 Newsletters

The inclusion of newsletters will be a valuable addition to The Signpost. They will promote the creation of newsletters and allow readers to discover parts of Wikipedia they may not have been aware of previously. They should be sorted from earliest publication date at the top. Some newsletters don't have dedicated pages, so section translcusion can be done with {{#section-h:PAGENAME|SECTION}}, if anyone wasn't aware how to do it. I collected the newsletters from Template:Newsletters, but some are not listed in the template. I've also wrapped <nowiki> tags in the newsletters that haven't been published yet. Svampesky (talk) 17:44, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

@Svampesky That's such a nice idea! Wouldn't readers be at risk of being a bit intimidated by that wall of information, though? Oltrepier (talk) 21:02, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

@Svampesky and Oltrepier: I guess I don't understand the proposal. Is it this: somebody goes to a few of the newsletters and then creates a newsletter article in The Signpost by doing a section transclusion? What else? What do we expect that will do for our readers? Before checking out the newsletter template, my feeling was that most of the newsletters are either defunct or only sporadically published. After checking, it looks like there are other problems as well. Some are poorly written or badly translated, and our readers will end up thinking "what was that nonsense all about?" I still feel that way if all we do is transclude. It would not be fair to our readers and sister publications to just pick something at random and post it here. So how can we do something with those newletters in a way that both their writers and our readers will feel is a quality effort? Smallbones_(smalltalk) 01:32, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

@Svampesky and Oltrepier: ok, not fully understanding the proposal, I didn't want to impose a structure on it that I think would work. Here goes though, I do think something is possible with it.

• A regular editor, or somebody who commits to publishing an "Across the movement" (or whatever) article once every 1-2 months, takes charge of it, selects specific reports, writes a couple of 1-2 paragraph intros, and then copies the newsletter reports over to the story and copy edits their text(!). That could work. Include a story from the GLAM or Military History newsletters at first to get people started reading it. Just make sure that readers don't run into a "what the heck" moment. It could work well if somebody is committed to getting it done. Other suggestions on how this might work are welcome. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 17:12, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

@Smallbones That's a good point, considering that not all projects have the depth and the top-notch organization of, let's say, Women in Red and WikiProject Medicine...

Your idea sounds quite promising! I'm not involved in a lot of key projects, unfortunately, but I'm sure there's someone who's more familiar with them and very much willing to report the news on a regular basis, apart from @Svampesky himself. Oltrepier (talk) 17:55, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

Thanks @Smallbones and @Oltrepier for the feedback. The idea is for it to serve as a bulletin board for WikiProjects, this is a common feature in newspapers. Svampesky (talk) 19:29, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

my feeling was that most of the newsletters are either defunct or only sporadically published. In the upcoming issue, the idea is to only include newsletters published in December 2024. Svampesky (talk) 19:32, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

Personally I don't feel that subscribing to the Signpost should become a defacto subscription to every newsletter published by every WikiProject. isaacl (talk) 19:51, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

@Isaacl I don't think that was Svampesky's plan, to be honest: it could just be a nice way to catch up with the latest updates from the most structured and important projects. Oltrepier (talk) 19:58, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

Sure, I just think that's the net effect. While I appreciate that might be of interest to some, I think there's a significant risk that many readers will think they don't need to subscribe to any specific newsletter any more, and yet ignore most of the newsletter section in the Signpost, thus decreasing the reach of the newsletters. I think a roundup of WikiProject news to help remind people of their existence might encourage more people to participate in them. isaacl (talk) 20:11, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

Now that we've discussed the proposal, which seems to be (paraphrasing) a condensed version of some projects' newsletters. Are we re-inventing the wheel here? Isn't this the kind of material that is often in the Discussion report? Here's a link to the relevant content guidance for cross reference. Couldn't whoever wants to do this, just start doing it under that title? ☆ Bri (talk) 17:45, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

I've added a hatnote to each newsletter so readers can subscribe to each of them. Svampesky (talk) 22:12, 21 December 2024 (UTC)

Issue 20:18 (Reprise)

Hello! Sorry for being essentially invisible in the latest weeks... again.

Resuming the discussion started by @Bri and @Smallbones a few days ago, I think it would be fun and heart-warming to write a short article where each one of us (main writers and editors) reflects on his favorite article of this year and, possibly, his hopes for the up-coming future of the Signpost. To me, it sounds like a good occasion to revamp the "On the bright side" column, too, although time is not necessarily on our side...

How do you feel about it? Oltrepier (talk) 21:08, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

I'd love to have a Christmas Eve issue. They always seem special to me in some way, even if they are not usually very long, or get a big readership. I do think that it can be a relaxed issue for Signposters and one that is appreciated by the readers. One personal problem for me is that I will be gone from the morning of the 23rd so won't be able to help after that. Also the Christmas Eve issue must be published at least by 23:59 UTC on December 24, no exceptions. As soon as Santa comes down the chimney the opportunity for a Christmas Eve issue is gone. Every story will be somehow out of date. But it doesn't need to be a long issue. I would publish if there are only 4 articles. My repeat Christmas carols "gallery" would be great IMHO. I think I can get a good (and relaxed) Disinfo report too. For In the media, there are already one or two stories and that might be enough. So what else do we need? We don't need to have a News and notes, but I'd guess something will show up. @HaeB: will there be a Recent research article? I do like @Oltrepier:'s "On the bright side" idea, but not for 20:18, make it for 21:01 on January 12 (our 20th birthday is on the 10th) More on that in a little bit. @Bri and JPxG: can either of you publish by 23:59 UTC on December 24, no exceptions? Can somebody approve story publication if JPxG is not available? Smallbones_(smalltalk) 17:40, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

@Smallbones Yes, I forgot about the 20th anniversary special, so it definitely makes sense to save my idea for the opening issue of 2025.

On a side note, I can think about at least two stories for N&N, one being the winners of Wiki Loves Earth 2024, and the other being the eventual appointment of the new key European Commissioners for the EU's tech policy, something I already flagged a while ago and that could end up playing a considerable role in the future of Wikipedia and other platforms. I'll try to work on those myself, but as always, any kind of help is hugely appreciated.

I'm also working on a short and sweet lead story for ITM, so stay tuned for it, as well! Oltrepier (talk) 18:06, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

• So just to summarize:

• December: Xmas Eve special (and maybe other qualifying holidays?)
• January: 20th Anniversary of The Signpost special

Is that right? ☆ Bri (talk) 20:12, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

@Bri Correct! Oltrepier (talk) 20:51, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

@Bri: Apologies for being late, but I've almost finished working on my ITM lead story about the Morrissey situation, and I'll submit it very soon. The same goes for my N&N story about the appointment of new European Commissioners; by the way, should we merge that with your entry about the AI audit?

On a side note, if anyone's able to copy-edit my submissions once I'm done, I'll try to go through everyone else's entries myself! Oltrepier (talk) 08:01, 20 December 2024 (UTC)

20:18 Opinion

As per the email invitation by Svampesky, I've put together a draft debriefing about my recent RFA at Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Next issue/Opinion. I for one am fairly happy with it for now, but I'll probably be making little tweaks to it until publication. As for the accompanying image, I can't really have an opinion on that ... there is the image on my user page plus File:Graham at the piano, Siegfrieds Mechanisches Musikkabinett, Rüdesheim.jpg ... or we can use something else. I hope this message is in the right place. Graham87 (talk) 14:21, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

Thank you for the submission, Graham87. I'll sort out the formatting. Svampesky (talk) 18:29, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

20:18 Humour

I have an idea for something and will have it posted before the deadline. It's Christmas-themed. Svampesky (talk) 20:33, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

Issue 21:01

20th birthday issue (2 days late, but 3 days before Wikipedia day).

• I assume that we'll have the 2024 full year traffic report.
• The "On the bright side" article should work well. Oltrepier, please tell us what type of story you want us to write. Is it say 2 paragraphs each, about a happy story, or longer for each of us, about something in 2024 or maybe something we expect to happen in 2025? How happy?
• Somebody, e.g. JPxG should write an article on the meaning of making it through 20 years.
• I'd like to write a history of The Signpost (starting about 2020 - maybe with COVID), it will be the 3rd in a series. I think it's important because it's also a history of Wikipedia and might be interesting to future researchers. It is a bit boring to write!
• We should contact former Signpost writers, other community leaders, people who have appeared in The Signpost, etc. and ask them each to write a full sentence, full paragraph or two, or even a full article, that we can package as appropriate into 1-3 articles.
• plus the regular stuff. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 19:37, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

@Smallbones I'll just noted that I've moved your post to a separate thread, so we don't get confused between the current developing issue and this one. : )

Yes, I was thinking about telling a positive change we saw on Wikipedia this year, and then revealing our respective favorite Signpost articles (not necessarily the most popular ones, and not necessarily ours) and how we think 2025 would look like for the newspaper and this platform. It should be short and sweet, and definitely matching the "bright side" energy!

How about combining this and your last suggestion? Oltrepier (talk) 20:08, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

Just a question, if issue 18 is scheduled for 24 December, then wouldn't the issue 19 be the 1st issue of volume 21... Vestrian24Bio (TALK) 14:56, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

@Vestrian24Bio Yes, good point... I'll fix it now! Oltrepier (talk) 19:32, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

Invited content

I reached out to Johnny Au, who has the editing streak record, for something to include in our 20th anniversary special. I titled the article "Essay". Maybe others here will invite some content too from people they think are interesting members of the community. If we have several of them, we can glom them together under one article title if they aren't too big, or break them out into individual pieces, I don't know. ☆ Bri (talk) 17:41, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

@Bri Nice idea, thank you for letting us know!

I was thinking about writing a short "Serendipity" article myself about what I've learned from my experience with the monthly bulletins of the most-viewed articles on the Italian Wikipedia, which has just published its end-year edition and, quite astoundingly, has broken into national media. I'm afraid it would be a bit selfish, though... Oltrepier (talk) 21:22, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

Should the page be moved to Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Next next issue/Essay, as the 20th anniversary will be the one after next, in case it gets accidentally published? Svampesky (talk) 20:17, 20 December 2024 (UTC)

Excellent suggestion, I was just worrying about that happening. ☆ Bri (talk) 05:07, 21 December 2024 (UTC)

From the archives

I'm thinking of running this one as "From the archives": From the editors, December 24, 2018, "Where to draw the line in reporting?", byline "Staff". One of the reader comments was "ask this question once a year" but we never did come back to it AFAIK. Also, the issue happens to have had the same publishing date, December 24. Thoughts? ☆ Bri (talk) 22:29, 19 December 2024 (UTC)

@Bri Yes, no problem with that! Oltrepier (talk) 07:56, 20 December 2024 (UTC)

@Bri, Oltrepier, and JPxG: I just copied the text and am on my way to paste it into "From the archives" for this issue. One question: The original byline was approx The Signpost editors with a link to our about page. JPxG changed the archived version to "staff". I much prefer the original. Note that an editor's introduction is needed at the top, I may try my hand at it but anybody should feel free to remove it or edit it and put in their own. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 17:17, 20 December 2024 (UTC)

I'm not sure how much overlap there is between today's signpost team and the team of six years ago, but if the people have changed or rather if their attitudes on this have changed, then you might want to change the byline to "the Signpost editors of 2018". ϢereSpielChequers 17:42, 20 December 2024 (UTC)

OK, thanks Bri! I found out Bri has already copied the text and added a second intro (but removed the original intro). I did change the byline to "the Signpost editors" and am not against adding "of 2018". And I added back the original intro below the new one. I did some minor copy editing, plus added 2018 in the first sentence of the text, replacing "this year". Changing only a couple tenses and adding the word "again", looks to me like it properly separates the past and left open the basic question as still being open for comment. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 18:03, 20 December 2024 (UTC)

20:18 News and notes

Anybody know what this supposed audit is all about? I've never heard of the company, nor the audit itself. There's more about the company and what they do here (dated 2022). ☆ Bri (talk) 21:50, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

I've got some stuff. I saw the same businesswire press release and it checks out. The audit is more or less published at the WMF website. It might have some interest for the conspiracy theorists who think that the foundation conspired with the feds to steal an election, but not really. Please don't push that. I suppose I could write a paragraph right now for ITM, but there's some more digging to do. Does anybody want to take this over and write a full Special report? I'll send you my "notes". It might not be that special though. 1 sentence take-away. Following EU regulations, WMF and 16? other large websites need (non-financial) audits to confirm that they are following EU regulations and HolisticAI did the work for WMF saying everything is more-or-less ok, with 1 mild shocker recommendation. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 22:27, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

It is challenging to summarize the audit and I'm thinking of not even doing it. Smallbones What did you find to be the "mild shocker"? Only this popped out to me, and I'm not sure it's newsworthy: acknowledged WMF cooperation with a US intelligence-slash-law-enforcement entity: WMF, being based in the United States, is a private sector partner of the NCRIC [Northern California Regional Intelligence Center], which handles international escalations for platforms within its jurisdiction through the US State Department directly into appropriate national law enforcement partner workflows of foreign jurisdictions, including EU countries. ☆ Bri (talk) 15:34, 21 December 2024 (UTC)

The consultants suggested that it might help to have another set of terms of use for some people - presumably those effected by EU regulations, which might include those who write in any European language. Whoops! that includes maybe 90%+ of all editors. The WMF's stiff non-reaction to that suggestion says to me that they see the same probable reaction from users and others that I'd predict. Perhaps a small reaction from our readers would give the WMF enough to say, "no that doesn't sound like a good idea." Smallbones_(smalltalk) 16:55, 21 December 2024 (UTC)

Aha, I saw where they recommended completing translation of the ToU to all the official EU languages (which is kind of a no-brainer IMO), but didn't see the other recommendation. ☆ Bri (talk) 16:59, 21 December 2024 (UTC)

Actually the Foundation said "The Wikimedia Foundation will review the ToU to make it less US-centric and to ensure contact information is easily accessible." I'm not sure that that means nation-specific editions of the ToU (probably not) so I'll just quote that in the writeup. ☆ Bri (talk) 17:15, 21 December 2024 (UTC)

I think this is ready to go. Back to the top, Smallbones suggested running this as a Special report, which I forgot when I created it as News and notes. I'm agnostic as to the title used, especially since it's currently the only thing in News and notes other than the tiny article for improvement note. ☆ Bri (talk) 17:25, 21 December 2024 (UTC)

@Bri I think I'll actually manage to sneak in one last article about the EU and Wikipedia, so that might solve the problem, I guess? Oltrepier (talk) 09:33, 22 December 2024 (UTC)

@Bri Ok, I've posted just one more article about new European Commissioners; please, don't kill me for this... Oltrepier (talk) 13:41, 22 December 2024 (UTC)

20:18 Gallery

Since my name isn't in the byline, I'd suggest incorporating some images that aren't wintry, especially considering one of the guest writers for this issue is Australian. Commons has a category with plenty of options to choose from: c:Category:Nellie Murrell Collection Christmas/New Year greeting cards and postcards. Svampesky (talk) 20:16, 20 December 2024 (UTC)

I've put in a second Australian card (They're right below the "Religious carols" heading). The problem is that Australian cards are pretty typical and many are wintry. No shrimp on the barbie. There are more ships in the Australian collection, though I have no idea why. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 17:00, 21 December 2024 (UTC)

20:18 deadline

Hey Signpost team: we are about four hours from nearing writing deadline. Please wrap up soon and mark your stuff ready for copyediting. There's a tight deadline for this issue. ☆ Bri (talk) 20:02, 21 December 2024 (UTC)

@Bri Copy that: I'll just write a short note about Wiki Loves Earth for N&N and then copy-edit everything I can. Oltrepier (talk) 20:33, 21 December 2024 (UTC)

The writing deadline is in 26 hours. Svampesky (talk) 21:59, 21 December 2024 (UTC)

Oh gosh, you're right. I have to learn to do UTC conversion right the first time. ☆ Bri (talk) 22:15, 21 December 2024 (UTC)

@Bri No worries! I'll try to copy-edit every article I can put my eyes on between this afternoon and tomorrow. Oltrepier (talk) 13:41, 22 December 2024 (UTC)